Key Lime Pie Challenge

Lately, I've had a LOT of people ask if I can bake up key lime pie. Of course, I'm always up for the challenge, but I had no idea where to start. I figured it would be similar to Pumpkin Pie, but really couldn't put the two together in my head. So after some research and networking, I found 3 recipes. So far I've made 2 of them, and I'm thinking the first one is better, both were acquired from Allrecipes.com . The last one is from a friend and is quite unique in that egg whites are completely ignored, no whipping, no meringue... I think I'm going to love the simplicity of this one, since beating the egg whites in the first two was quite exhausting. Here's the basics of each one:

Recipe 1:

• Condensed milk based
• home-made graham cracker crust
• bottled key lime juice
• create light meringue which is combined with lime filling

Recipe 2:

• Uses key lime juice + zest (I had to cheat and use regular lime zest)
• uses corn starch, flour, sugar, water mixture for filling
• home-made graham cracker crust (trying to perfect this recipe)
• large meringue piled on top (lots of beating/whipping

Recipe 3:

• Sweetened condensed milk
• Lime juice + zest (doesn't indicate key lime??)
• yolks only, no egg whites (no beating!!!)
• home-made graham cracker crust, although I was recommended to make a Nilla wafer crust for this instead

At first I thought recipe #2 was going to be the best of the lot, but now I'm thinking recipe #3 might win it because if it's simplicity; Recipe #1 is incredibly simple as well, and does incorporate a meringue, even though it is folded into the batter, which I thought was quite odd. I whipped #2 together last night, and, to be honest, I unsure of how to preserve it. So much that I ate a piece warm, not bad, but interesting. I love how spongy the meringue is, and the graham cracker crust is getting better. Right now it's in the freezer, hopefully it doesn't cause havoc with all of the water in the lime mixture. I'll try to document the making of #3 from start to finish and give my final verdict, shortly!